When the first shooting star fell, A-Xiang had reached the pleasure boat ferry crossing. She brushed shoulders with an ice-hauling cart. 

The chill offset the greater part of the hot sweat on her forehead. She breathed out a heavy sigh. 

A-Xiang was the nominal age of fifteen. Her father had died when she was young. Back then her family had had a few mu of barren land, but they’d had absolutely no ability to work it. A widowed old man and his frail daughter-in-law bringing up a child could work themselves to death all year without digging up a handful of grains, and they couldn’t afford to hire people, so when someone came to collect land to build a factory, her grandfather had sold their land. 

For the first few years, it hadn’t been so bad. Working at the factory brought money in faster than farming. But the good days didn’t last. The year before last, the factory had suddenly said they didn’t want anyone fifty or over, so the family had lost its livelihood at once. 

The money from selling the land back then had gone faster and faster, and an illness of A-Xiang’s mother used it all up.

They had no more money and no place to live. Only the grandfather and granddaughter remained, relying on each other for survival. Laborers, waiters—in order to earn a mouthful, she did everything alongside her grandfather. In the Grand Selection Year, by chance, grandfather and granddaughter had come to Jinping in search of food and were doing temporary work in a factory in the southern outskirts. 

Lately, A-Xiang had amassed a little fortune. 

At first, there had been people voicing their grievance outside the south city gate. It seemed they were saying that when the rails for the Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon had been laid, their land had been coveted by corrupt officials. They had nowhere to turn, so they had come to the capital to demand justice. Later, perhaps because no one was paying attention to them or something, for the sake of making themselves look more impressive, these people began hiring others to complain with them. 

This work was simple. You only had to take a form for filing suit and wait by the roadside. When you saw a beautiful carriage going past, you would lift the paper and recite the words along with everyone else, and get fifty coins a day—while at the docks, the strongest and most able laborers could earn around thirty. 

Her grandfather didn’t let her go. The old man always had his own mysterious reasons. He said, “If you bring a false grievance when you haven’t been wronged, you’ll be threatening your luck.” A-Xiang hadn’t listened to him. She thought that, in the countryside, people got hired as “filial descendants” to help mourn at funerals, and she had done that kind of unlucky work; what was wrong with helping people bring a grievance? It wasn’t an offense against heaven. Anyway, her grandfather thought that if you bought Golden Tray lottery tickets on even-numbered days, you could win the grand prize. He had wasted all their lamp oil money on that scrap paper, and he hadn’t gotten a single coin back for it. 

Jinping had warmed up early this year. Before the Dragon Boat Festival, the summer heat had already come. The heat cooked A-Xiang’s grandfather into an illness. He didn’t eat a thing for two days, but his belly swelled up like a pregnant woman’s. After that, A-Xiang brought the grievance for three days, earned a hundred and fifty coins, and remembered that her grandfather had said that when they had come to work in the city before, the food their master had rewarded them with had included a duck’s head from the Phoenix’s Perch Pavilion, and he had never eaten anything better in his life. So, taking her money, she found the Phoenix’s Perch Pavilion. 

But it turned out that the best thing her grandfather had eaten in his life was a scrap they wouldn’t sell on its own.

When A-Xiang closed her eyes, it was as if she could once again hear the laughter in the Phoenix’s Perch Pavilion, like evil music.

“Little brother, stop running, aren’t you hot?” Seeing her involuntarily following the ice cart, a stand owner selling cold drinks by the street saw an opening to solicit a customer. “Have a bowl of ice balls to cool off, even the immortals are satisfied customers!” 

A-Xiang stopped in her tracks, turned, and saw the “ice balls” that the cold drinks stand was selling: the little balls rolled out of sticky rice flour were glistening and transparent, accompanied by all types of fruit and mint juices. Cold wafted off of them in the stifling night. She couldn’t resist swallowing a mouthful of saliva. 

Seeing that she was moved, the stand owner urged her: “Have a bowl to taste. Cools you down, and it’s easy on the stomach, very pleasant!” 

A-Xiang had been shaking her head, but when she heard “easy on the stomach,” she hesitated. “How much for a bowl?” 

A moment later, she was holding a pot full of ice balls; she had cheered back up—the well-meaning stand owner had heard that she wanted to buy it to take home to her grandfather and praised her for her filial piety, so he had served her the ice balls in a porcelain pot and told her to bring it back for a refill when they had eaten all of it. 

Weren’t these beautiful ice balls better than some lousy duck’s head? 

She thought: When I’m rich, I’ll buy out all the tables at the Phoenix’s Perch Pavilion, order a hundred whole ducks, then feed all the meat to the dogs.

A-Xiang was afraid of letting the crushed ice melt. She ran like mad the whole way, holding the porcelain pot. 

She ran through the busy area in the east city, cleverly dodged the carriages passing through, hopped and skipped in long strides across holes dug out for street repairs, then whistled to a girl selling flowers by the street. When the girl realized what had had happened and went to spit at her, there was nothing to spit at; A-Xiang had already run out of the south city gate. 

Outside the city to the south, it was still stinking. The vendors selling mixed grain flatbreads were preparing to take down their stands, and the bread had been discounted to three for one coin. 

“Uncle, I’m not buying any!” A-Xiang called excitedly. “I have good stuff to eat today!” 

She was too good at running, like a little wild horse. She didn’t rest for a single breath, running the whole way back to the factory. Water droplets beaded on the outside of the ice cold porcelain pot. A-Xiang wiped her wet hand clean against herself, then suddenly found that the atmosphere in the factory district was unusual. There were many people around…each one of them carrying a sword; they were soldiers. 

What had happened? 

There was an uproar, and several people were dragged out by the soldiers, who cursed and hit them. They were all people A-Xiang knew. Her eyes opened wide. She was about to step forward when someone next to her held her back. It was Uncle Salted Fish, who usually liked to buy Gold Basin lottery tickets along with her grandfather.

Uncle Salted Fish had eyes many times larger than an ordinary person’s, staring so hard they nearly came out of their sockets. He pulled A-Xiang aside and quietly said, “Don’t go over there!” 

A-Xiang said, “What’s going on? Why are they arresting people?” 

“They’re saying those people bringing a grievance outside the south city gate are traitors, vilifying the court. They’re going through the factories one by one to investigate… Hey, didn’t you also go with them?” 

A-Xiang was a half-grown child. All her ferocity was in her words. Hearing this, her heart began to beat wildly, slam-slam, her hands even colder than the pot of ice. 

Just then, she saw two soldiers pulling someone out of the factory. 

It was her grandpa! 

The old man was sick. Held between two strapping soldiers, his feet dragged limply along the ground. He looked like a dying old dog. 

Uncle Salted Fish had seen, too. He kept muttering, “Oh no, what a mess! What a mess! …Hey, where are you going?” 

A-Xiang, about to rush over, was dragged back by Uncle Salted Fish. “My grandpa! My grandpa didn’t go, he’s being wrongly accused!” 

“The soldiers don’t care whether the people they arrest are wrongly accused, better shut up and behave!” Uncle Salted Fish grabbed the girl. “Or else they’ll take you along with him!” 

Seeing another team of officers heading their way, Uncle Salted Fish was alarmed. Brooking no argument, he hid himself and A-Xiang inside a haystack. 

The city guard soldiers’ boots trampled over the muddy ground of the southern outskirts’s factory district.

Shooting stars fell like rain. 

“My lord.” A bailiff ran up in front of the capital overseer, wiped sweat from his forehead, and reported, “In the rabble-rousing outside the south city gate, over sixty of the disorderly individuals spreading the ‘man-eating Cloud Soaring Flood Dragon’ rumor have been arrested and are waiting to be tried, you…” 

“Who are they waiting for? Go try them!” The capital overseer raised his eyelids irritably. “Who instigated them to vilify the court?! If they don’t tell you, beat them to death! The emperor issued an order in court today, requesting that we find the instigator behind this! If we don’t hand the instigator’s head over today, it’ll be our own heads we hand over tomorrow. Hurry up!” 

The bailiff took to his heels and ran, startling an old crow into flight. 

The inauspicious crow cawed, crying or laughing, and flew towards the west of the Lingyang River. 

The black cat at Prince Zhuang Manor stared unblinking at the bird flying by, wiggling its butt excitedly as if about to pounce. Then the scruff of its neck was squeezed midway by an ice cold hand. 

“Keep an eye on it, don’t let it put wild animals in its mouth. They’re filthy.” Prince Zhuang stuffed the cat into Bai Ling’s arms and sighed, half genuinely. “Hiring people to bring grievances outside the south city gate, this Lord Sun… Well, ready the carriage, I’ll go to the palace to intercede with the Crown Prince—oh, yes, has there been a letter on the proximal today?” 

Bai Ling responded, “Not yet.” 

“He agreed to report that he was safe and sound every day, and he’s only been gone a few days when he forgets his duty.” Prince Zhuang called servants to help him change into court dress. “Ungrateful scoundrel.” 

Xi Ping the ungrateful scoundrel arrived back at the Qiu courtyard just as the gate was about to lock. 

When he came into his room, he put the unconscious half-puppet aside. Then, holding onto hope, he searched through the nooks and crannies to see whether there were any “surviving” spiritual stones. 

The upshot was that, never mind spiritual stones, this lousy half-puppet hadn’t even left him a single grain of “spiritual sand.” 

After working hard to no avail, Xi Ping hated the half-puppet even more. 

But when he had rolled up his sleeves and was about to take it up with the half-puppet, he found that in so short a time, the half-puppet had already grown a palm’s breadth. The little jacket and little pants had become too small. 

Because he was growing too quickly, something cracked in the half-puppet’s body, whether bones or Moon Plated Gold. His legs twitched constantly. 

Xi Ping carefully reached out to feel. Through the clothes, he could feel something chugging away inside the half-puppet’s body like a steam engine at high speed, as if about to blow up at any moment. 

Fine. Never mind beating him up, he didn’t even dare to touch him now. 

“If he really does blow up,” Xi Ping suddenly thought, “then won’t my box of spiritual stones have gone to waste?” 

He thought it over. Then, grimacing, he pricked his finger and stingily squeezed out a drop of blood to rub on the dragon-taming chain. The drop of blood was quickly absorbed, and Xi Ping once again had that unusual sensation, as though he had grown a tail. Only then did he uneasily wash up and go to sleep. 

He was keeping an eye out to “watch” so in case something went wrong with his “tail” in the middle of the night, he would know in time. 

When the dragon-taming chain absorbed its master’s blood, the ice cold foil seemed to warm and encircle the half-puppet’s neck, neither loose nor tight. 

Xi Ping put out the light. In the dark, the half-puppet opened his bloodshot eyes and moved them with difficulty, looking in the direction of the bedroom. 

It was only his body that couldn’t move; actually, he had been conscious the whole time. 

From the beginning of the half-puppet’s blurry memories, he had always been a half-human monster. His original master had never fed him spiritual stones, only ground up three grains of green ore a month, dissolved it in water, and given it to him to drink, so he narrowly scraped by. So he didn’t grow taller or more intelligent. He was ignorant and bewildered, with nothing in his head but hunger. 

It was this that made his spiritual sense unusually acute, so he could locate places where spiritual energy was abundant for his master, acting as a “spiritual energy dog.” 

Once, his master had gotten drunk and hadn’t properly put away the two liang of jade stamps in his wallet. The half-puppet, emboldened by hunger, truly hadn’t been able to resist; he had gobbled up the two liang of jade stamps. 

His master had flown into a rage on waking, cut off his spiritual pathways on the spot, broke apart the arrays on his bones, sliced open his belly, and removed the two green stamp stones. A cold blade cut through his skin, and two rough hands searched through his organs. 

In order to make him “remember,” his master had left him lying there with his scant flesh and bones, exposed to the sun for three sweltering summer days… He was a monster who couldn’t even die under those circumstances; so why could he feel pain the same as flesh and blood? 

Fortunately, the half-puppet’s intellect was incomplete; he couldn’t even go mad. 

Since then, he had indeed remembered. When he saw the color of jade stamp green, he felt as though he were being torn apart. Even the spring colors of Jiangnan made him fearful. 

Humans and animals alike became too bold to fear death when they were starving. His original master had given him a forceful “warning” against jade stamps, but he hadn’t taught him to fear blue jade. 

Faced with a whole unlocked box of blue jade, the half-puppet hadn’t been able to resist making the same old mistake. 

When Xi Ping had carried him to Chengjing Hall, the half-puppet, with his intellect that was no better than a cat’s or dog’s, understood that he had gotten himself into serious trouble. He was probably a goner this time. 

Luckily, he didn’t understand what regret was. 

He had lived only to eat. Now that he had eaten his fill, it was all right if he was torn to pieces. 

But…why hadn’t he been torn to pieces? 

The abundant spiritual energy in the blue jade scoured the half-puppet’s long-stalled body. All of his rough and slipshod arrays were nourished. The half-puppet’s body and intellect, like bamboo shoots welcoming spring rain, grew quickly. As his body grew taller as if breaking through a cocoon, many unclear things in his mind also suddenly became clear, so that when the half-puppet had the strength to open his eyes, he had worked out the whole story—someone had given up a hundred liang of blue jade to preserve his worthless, filthy life. 

His radically changing flesh and bones tore apart bit by bit, then tore again before they could mend… This was a pain worse than death. 

The half-puppet shook all over, bit another segment off his deformed tongue. His mouth filled with blood. 

He was no longer aware of anything, only desperately struggling to live: his life belonged to that person. 

When the final shooting star fell, the starry sky once again became silent. On this night, the land of dreams was desolate; there were people everywhere who couldn’t sleep all night. 

Outside of Jinping’s south city gate, A-Xiang burst into her home. Uncle Salted Fish had said he was going to pull in connections for her, see whether they could bribe a couple of city guards and get her grandfather released. A-Xiang’s grandpa had been sick for days and hadn’t been out of the house. The factory’s barefoot doctor could give evidence. She was the one they should have arrested. 

But the problem was, what would they use for a bribe? 

A-Xiang turned the little shack she and her grandfather lived in upside down. Apart from a string of coins barely sufficient for grandfather and granddaughter to eat mixed grain bread for half a month, there was only a pile of expired Golden Tray lottery tickets. There were gold and silver, jewels and pearls, auspicious clouds and colorful phoenixes garishly drawn on the waste paper tickets. There were thirty-one of them, each one a broken dream. 

Her grandfather had piled the Golden Tray lottery tickets into paper ingots and placed them on the simple incense altar. There was no divine image on the tablet; it was only an empty protection amulet. This was supposed to be the amulet of Grand Duke Tai Sui. Her grandfather couldn’t clearly explain what the grand duke’s history was. He had picked this thing up somewhere and joined others in worshipping it. Every time, before he bought a Golden Tray lottery ticket, he would piously come pay his respects. But perhaps Grand Duke Tai Sui didn’t do double duty as a god of wealth. It hadn’t worked even once. 

A-Xiang had exhausted her strength and come to the end of the road. By a mysterious coincidence, she also put together a paper ingot for Grand Duke Tai Sui and, willing to try anything in a crisis, prayed to the amulet. 

It was too hot, and A-Xiang was overheated. When she lowered her head, her nose began to drip blood. As A-Xiang rushed to wipe blood off the “amulet,” she babbled, “Save my grandpa, Lord Tai Sui, I beg you, save my grandpa. If only you can save my grandpa, I’ll give you my life…” 

The amulet was made of some special wood. As if it were cotton, it greedily sucked up every drop of blood between her fingers. 

Pang Jian strode into Heaven’s Design Pavilion’s head office and directly asked a subordinate, “What’s going on with those evil cultivators’ wooden amulets?” 

“Commander, look.” The blue-clotheser took out one of the reincarnation wood amulets they had seized from the evil cultivators. The ghastly pale wooden amulet was mottled with bloodstains, as if someone had awakened the evil spirit of the amulet. “When there was that meteor shower to the south earlier, it suddenly became like this.” 

A freight steamship thundered as it left the dock, raising huge, foul waves that rolled over a fly looking for food by the canal. 

The beam of a lighthouse went by and fell on the bright green surface of the water. It swept over the struggling and dying little insect and pierced the thin mist. 

In the Latent Cultivation Temple, Xi Ping frowned as he rolled over, sleeping uneasily. His ears were full of crying and murmuring voices. 

Someone was begging him to save some “grandpa,” someone was wailing, someone was shrieking miserably… 

Amid the noise, he seemed to “dream” that in the next room, the half-puppet woke up, opened his eyes and stood, then went into his bedroom. 

How annoying. Xi Ping covered his head with the quilt. 

The half-puppet silently entered Xi Ping’s room and saw that he had been practicing some martial art in his sleep; he had uncovered his whole body and rolled up his quilt from the chest up, as if he had reached a dead end and wanted to hang himself with the brocade quilt. 

The half-puppet squatted beside the bed for a while watching Xi Ping, then carefully reached out, wanting to dig him out of the quilt. 

Suddenly, the half-puppet gave a start and took a big step back, his skinny back bending. 

Xi Ping, who had been sleeping like a dead dog, had suddenly sat up in bed like a risen corpse! 

He slowly unwrapped the brocade quilt wound around his neck. His eyes were as clear as if he hadn’t been sleeping at all. He looked right at the half-puppet, then smiled strangely. 

The hairs stood up on the back of the half-puppet’s neck. 

“Xi Ping” slowly twisted his neck, straightened his clothes and sleep-rumpled hair, then raised his hands in front of him and lovingly stroked and examined them. He sighed with deep feeling. “Truly the hands of someone raised in comfort and plenty.” 

This was indeed Xi Ping’s voice, but the pronunciation was completely different from his usual speech, so it made him sound like a different person. In the deep voice, there was a faint Ning’an accent! 

“Xi Ping” stood up and walked a few steps. He extended a hand, and the half-puppet, as if strung up by invisible cords, hung in mid air, coming level with his line of sight. 

“Little thing.” “Xi Ping” examined him for a moment, then laughed. “You’ve never had a chance to be a man. Don’t pick up a man’s habit of getting up to tricks, huh? You know what to say and what not to say?” 

The half-puppet opened his mouth and displayed his deformed teeth and throat.

“I see, you can’t speak. That’s great.” “Xi Ping”’s cold finger passed downwards over the half-puppets lips. The half-puppet gave a fierce start—this finger passed precisely over the places where arrays were carved on his body, sharper than the knife that had once cut open his belly, and colder. 

“Talkative puppets get chopped into firewood, shoved in the stove, and burned up.” “Xi Ping” put a finger to his lips. “Shh—”

Then he snapped his fingers, and the puppet, as if he had been given a heavy shove, staggered back into the study. 

“Xi Ping” turned and went into the small courtyard behind the rooms, waved a hand to set up a prohibition, then sat cross-legged under an osmanthus tree. 

Pale moonlight reflected off the clouds and swept over the ground. It passed through the prohibition that was invisible to the naked eye and fell on “Xi Ping,” casting his shadow. 

This shadow didn’t have a human shape. It was a pitch-black dragon.